@ payne

I still don't know what you mean. I can't "make" a unit burrow. In addition, placing burrowed units around my hero requires gridding in the first place.

@ Tikels

Flag beacons stop working after the game has elapsed for a certain period of time. I believe it is around 10 minutes. They are not usable.

... I don't understand how the user would need to move their screen to cast the spell....

And you can have quite alot of directions... I recall a guy making a teleportation spell in which the user spams cheap firebats, and that would aim the teleport in the direction with having a set distance.
It WAS upgradable, however... But you can mimic it without using the upgrades...
You can mimic that while incorperating my idea of an interceptor, (or scarab if you want like a "fast dash" movement spell, and you would have a pretty nice system.

There are 2 ways of doing this firebat system...
The first one is basically like a lock n load kinda thing, in which the person can make a Medic, ghost, or marine or something that starts the spell count, then the person makes firebats, then the spell aims, then the person makes another rine, ghost, medic/whatever/ to launch....

The other one is to have a DC or Switch timer, in which you allot X amount of miliseconds for the trigger to wait inbetween firebats before launching.

Using these 2 ideas together may make a pretty solid teleport for you... Cloaked interceptors, quite alot of precision, and its quite user friendly once the person gets used to the game.

With multiple carriers, you have to move your screen to the carrier you want to get the direction. I do not have 8+ hotkeys available for a single spell as the other spells use hotkeys already.

Uncloaking interceptors are pretty obvious too.

I'm not sure what you mean by firebat spam. Do you mean, make 1 firebat to shoot in one direction, 2 in another, 3 in another, etc.? If so, then this system is far too slow to use. If not, could you explain it further?

Well, you could just use 1 carrier and reset the generic location or whatever the hell it is for custom AI scripts. Either that, or just move the carrier. (Maybe use a scarab?)
The Scarab would look cool though... like its going so fast that the hero is just seen as a blue dot kinda thing???

Anyways If you do not want to do the firebat idea, i was thinking maybe you could use a hatchey, build the unit coordinating with the direction. (Drone would be going up and left, Zergling going up, Overlord going Up right)
Its a quick switch... People will naturally be really quick at it... (say if you had your hero as hotkey 1, and the larva as hotkey 2.
Keystrokes would be "2 + o + 1"

Firebats actually can be very quick, especially with experienced players, by having an immediate build time, like in Shmidleys Darisen RP Map
Maybe even having a little "aimer" by having a transmission coming from a burrowed unit, and that aimer moves around clockwise on your hero.

If you had about 24 possibilities, you can have a player go as such.
1 M F F F F F F F F F M
This would be going Up and Right at a 45 Degree angel, relative to the hero's position.
It'd be wicked fast, especially with a reaver's scarabs....
In a separate area, you might want to have a reaver being created every half a second or so, so you always have a scarab in the open.


If you want, you can make a test map. After playing this map a couple of times, a person can get wicked fast at teleporting (or whatever movement spell theyre using)

No AI scripts. I can't afford to have any possible interference with the ones I'm already running.

Moving the Carrier is easier than it sounds as I'm not coordinate gridding. If I wanted to lunge upwards, I'd have to find where the hero is and move the Carrier above it at the edges of the map without gridding.

It also has to be an air unit as the player can transform into a Zerg Guardian. Scarabs also have the problem of ending up in a tight space that the hero can't be moved to.

For the hatchery, you'd have to hotkey the hatchery and not the larva as the larva would be continually lost. In addition, the hotkeys are not in an intuitive order to use with the keyboard; you'd have to stop and think which key to press in order to switch directions. The player should never have to move their mouse to cast a spell unless it's to actually aim to a specific point on the screen. Usability and all.

Firebats are not quick for what I'm trying to do. I want people to lunge in, transform, cast a damage spell, and lunge out all within the timespan of 1 second. Burrowed aimers are also all but impossible as I can't grid on this map.

That being said, thanks for the continued help. Until something else amazing comes up, I'm probably going to end up using the waypoint casting system despite the stupid swerve that the Scourge does. It offers the most control as I can pick a specific point on the screen without gridding. I can mitigate the hotkey loss by leaving the Scourge owned by the player and cover the cloaked Scourge with stacked Recalls or exploding animations (even if they're displaced sometimes).

I know that your map pushes the limits of sc mapping, but I think you're kind of missing the point when you put visuals over gameplay. "Ugly" or not, it's sc, and it's all ugly compared to what you'd have if you made a game from scratch. With all the restrictions you put on yourself and us, I don't see why you think ugliness is a significant factor. I would be much more worried about the use of each character, as all of the ones in the demo I last saw were rather unwieldy. I can see people getting kinda used to it, but doing the hotkey+mouseclick just for selecting a spell is unnatural at best. Adding an aimed spell to that is quite a problem, especially when combo'ing.

Keep in mind that combining mouse and keyboard is often actually easier. That's why Dark swarm etc is still usable. So in the same thought, having a hatchery, and using a hotkey+S (very common in melee and thus natural) and at the same time moving your mouse to a simple visual display of how you want to teleport... I'd prefer that over what you've had for your characters thus far. An uncloaking Interceptor is something you could easily consider "cool," rather than "ugly," especially considering you transform all the time as it is with this character.

Also, things will never be perfect. No one expects it, but if the gameplay is too awkward, it won't succeed. It'll just be pretty. If you want it to be exactly a certain way, develop a game from scratch.

That being said, I still feel like ground mobile gridding has some potential (You can enforce air units to be on the ground to use this move, as the "nature" of it). The spell doesn't always have to come out exact. I've thought of perhaps the possibility of using spider mines or what have you being spammed a bit on top of the player, and then have a location designed to take out all but the border ones. Furthermore, the usual corners and centers of sides (8-dir, which is fine btw) could be a different unit, and would be the target of teleporting. If you could make it owned by 2 different players, you can make combinations of mines held by one, tele unit helld by the other, or both by one, for corners. The centers are easy, as you detect whether he's gone up/down ("out of row loc?") or left/right ("out of column loc?"), and then have one player own up and one own down, and same for left/right. then you center a loc on your character (possibly a small row and small column) to detect those units and figure everything out. The more players you use, the easier it'd be.

So you give the player a second to move, prolly no more. As soon as the spider mines go down, or whatever, the spell would be over and all removed. If he moves within that time, he could have the chance to move again after being tele'd, repeating the process, creating a "flash step" (if you watch bleach). It could perhaps take little or no "stamina" minerals to continue after the initial step.

First, I'm not pushing the limits. Map makers the caliber of Lethal do that. I just work with what I got.

Visuals matter. I refuse to have an invincible battlecruiser for 5 seconds be a spell. I flat out refuse.

The restrictions are a necessary evil. Some other stuff is done already, and every completed aspect of the map enforces its own unique restriction. If I could get around it, I totally would.

Hotkey and mouse usage is completely natural. Have you played Diablo 2 at all? With default controls, you first press F1-12 to select the spell, then right click. That or select the spell with F1-12 before holding shift and left clicking. The system I'm advocating requires some extra action (you have to "reselect" the spell each time before you right click, then select your hero again afterwards), but the difference is minute if you have reasonably fast finger speeds (if you don't, Starcraft isn't the game for you).

I'm leaning toward the Waypoint Casting System, which uses shift and right click to aim the spell. It is therefore a combination of mouse (aiming) and keyboard (hotkey and shift). The Hatchery system requires that you move the mouse out of battle to the bottom right control area. For the pace of gameplay I'm aiming for, the player should not have to mouse their mouse from the battle. It's why I think the Dropship system sucks. Waypoint Casting does everything better than a Hatchery one, though it has its faults. It also allows for more accuracy than an 8 way system as I can achieve angles the other can't and is a lot faster to cast to boot.

The gameplay might be a bit awkward at first, as is any new game, but it isn't that hard to adjust. The point of my demos was to test the spells in actual combat against a group of enemies. I didn't want it to be impossible to play. Player 3 is considered the most click intensive of the characters, and therefore possibly the hardest to play, but in a few minutes of completing him I managed to spam alternating spells at great speeds. I've tested and confirmed that it's doable. You just have to be decently proficient at Starcraft. I'm not catering to the average battle net player. Players who are better at the game should be rewarded. People who aren't can simply build easier characters with more defense and less effective but easier to use offensive spells. Player 3 maxing life, Infested Kerrigan HP, and then 1 offensive spell is one example of an easy build. Player 2 maxing life, range, and strafe is another. They will kill slower of course, but they're easy to play. I was looking for a combat intensive SC RPG, but none achieved the level that I was hoping for. It's why I started the map in the first place.

Spells must come out as exact as possible. I have already made some allowances with Sunkens not always being in the center and Disruption Web sometimes being off by a tile or so when aimed above the Corsair, but it should be pretty damn accurate. Practically every spell I've made requires some form of additional input from the user; no spell should be braindead easy to use. You have to aim some spells, time others, continually switch between them, and sometimes even combo them together. It's why I completely scrapped a large number of spells that I completed, tested, and realized were just far too easy. Healing spells are too easy. Invincible Mutalisks above your head are too easy. So on and so forth.

Ground gridding is a nono. Terrain issues galore. Units in the way issues. For crying out loud, Player 3 can SPAM unburrowing Infested Terrans until there is 0 room for any new unit, unless it's aerial, burrowed, or a powerup, to be created. If I was player 1, I'd sure as hell want to escape with a nice movement spell right then and there, which unplacable spider mines can't provide. In addition, that isn't even counting what enemies can do. The fights I'm planning on are supposed to be large in scale. You're going to be literally mowing down legions of organized enemies here, not some inconsequential wild animal that happened to wander into your path. If you're surrounded (I do want to allow for close ranged builds after all), you need an option to back off immediately.

Oh and, flashstep is a sorry excuse to save money on animation. It doesn't even look cool.

Flash Step may be a poor excuse for lack of animation, but most people still think it's cool. My point wasn't so much to copy it btw... it was just a comparison. I wanted something that differed from a teleport or a drag with "waypoints." I felt that was at least somewhere in between (credit goes to aphtershox for the idea of allowing another jump within a short time limit).

I can certainly see why ground gridding would be a problem with the IT summon. but without that, some less accuracy isn't always such a terrible thing. There are already times you don't allow them to cast, so that might take care of some situations in other maps. But yeah, I understand.

I understand your want for skill-based spells/combos, but sometimes an easy move is permissible if it's at the end of a combo, simply to not make it so brain twisting or time consuming. I could not for the life of me get a gale to move a unit to a trap not right next to me without it running away before I blew it up, assuming I even succeeded the first try, because of the extra step each time. Having to do the key/mouse select AND key/mouse cast is a lot harder than what the Diablo 2 system sounds like (haven't played), specifically when trying to combo. I know you were redesigning the Amazon, but it's an example of the time it takes for a combo in action compared to basic no-spell enemies. Perhaps a more accurate test map depicting a real, average battle would alter my views on things, of course. Having a ton of defensively strong enemies constantly attack-moving to the center of a room barely big enough for them prolly isn't very true of what battles would be like, I'm guessing.

The reason I believed the Hatchery method wasn't so bad is that since you are teleporting, your mouse is likely to be more freed up anyways, and it's easy visually. Dropship casting has its merits too, but I know it isn't fast-paced.

I understand many of your restrictions are necessary, but it's your attitude toward others' suggestions in general that had me annoyed. You are very close-minded on this, and I know you want it to be the best it can possibly be, but once again, I suggest making a real game then. I will likely take that road when SC2 comes out myself. I know it's a big jump but I bet you could handle it, and maybe get hired in a game company if you tried. For now, work with what you've got.

Since this is SC, visuals matter less. I understand you not wanting a simple "summon" spell overhead, but considering an uncloaking interceptor move as ugly or what have you... there's only so much you can do, and in SC terms that looks pretty cool. I'm glad you've "lowered your standards" to make the sunken spell usable, but I hope you'll do the same with everything. With the last demo I played, transforming was an issue because you refused to allow a player to transform when a few zealots are surrounding your units because it would *gasp* make your morph not occur in the current unit's center. If it were that big of an issue, I'd sooner move the enemies temporarily rather than disallow any ground morphs. Honestly, if I were to use a morph system for a character, I would be having a hard time accepting that they don't have a shared health and consider vHP. Which, as it turns out, basically disallows the use of simple "braindead easy" spells like a 5-second BC, and allows for much more, though not as easy to create.

Finally, I'm sorry if "pushing" the limits was the wrong word for you. I was merely complimenting you for being at the limits.

Getting traps off should be easier with the Amazon's final spell. It's a proximity explosive (blows up when enemies nearby) that can be galed forwards only. You can set it and gale into enemies or you can leave it next to your mines and gale enemies into that (proximity will cause the nearby traps to go off). It needs some actual testing to ensure that it works properly though; I need to prevent players from accidentally galing the proximity explosive when they need it to activate traps, which I will do probably by having a smaller location to gale the explosive with.

How the enemies are going to be is something I'm still debating about. I have a few options and I'm weighing the pros and cons.

I'd rather use to mouse to teleport via Waypoints. Even if it's freed up during teleport, let's say I wanted to cast a spell immediately after a teleport. If my mouse is at the bottom right, I can't immediately order the spellcasting unit to move as the mouse has to return to the screen. It's slower.

I apologize for my attitude. Most of it is because I've repeated myself endlessly each time someone makes a suggestion without reading my older posts, but I am at fault. I'll try to watch it from now on. Also, I prefer making maps in SC1 because dealing with limitations is just plain fun. When I have too much to work with, I get lost. The chance of me completing a map in SC2 is slimmer than completing one in SC1.

I could use a cloaked stacked Scourge instead of an interceptor. I also managed to use stacked dts for shield damage animations, cloaked stacked queens for mind control, and cloaked stacked queens for feedback. Working with what I have is fun. It gets me to think in new ways.

vHP would get wierd for what I'm trying to do. Having 1 burrowed unit only represent hp means I can't really see my own health. Having each death of a burrowed unit represent damage skews enemy damage in ways that I don't want. It's why I left the transformation sequence without vHP. I kinda liked how it turned out personally.

As for getting surrounded and not transforming due to lack of room, it's why Guardian and Lunge will be there. Played correctly, Player 1 will almost never be attacked in the first place, even if he's in meleeing in the midst of combat. Firebat has a 1 second invulnerability that will cause enemies to ignore you. Continually switching properly should allow for some crazy stuff. As I'm removing the Lurker form now, the only form you might have a problem with close up is going from Firebat to Reaver. If it becomes that much of an issue, I'll let you transform without it being in the center.

Thanks for the compliment about limits.